


Waking Death

by Azrael (rcs)



Category: Ragnarok Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/Azrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Death

Six years old with a whole life ahead of him. Six years old, and so small, underweight but smiling with the joy of ignorance and immaturity, of innocence and ease. Six years old, and filled with scraped up knees and captured fireflies, of broken tree limbs and fluff born on the breeze.

Six years old, and the boy with black hair and black eyes smiled to the sun, waiting for it to take him.

But the sun wouldn’t come out from behind the darkened clouds, storms coming with gusting windows. He barely knew, barely could tell when he fell into Payon cave, tumbled right through the opening on feet he had never been steady with, leaving the musty smell to wrap around him like a cradle. His surprised shout echoed, bouncing off damp stone walls, loud enough to cover the shuffle of approaching feet, of flapping wings, of bones that rattled off one another.

Six years old, and so not ready to die.

The bile, wet and green, fell down upon him, a shower of rot, a rain of reeking stink. Was that corroded intestine in the mess? Bits of purple flesh that snuck out amid the vile splatter? Scrabbling back on his hands and behind, he tried to crawl, tried to hurry, but the skeletons blocked his way and the familiar confused him with its swoops, its swirls.

The bile came again. And again. It splashed into his mouth when he shrieked, and the world hazed into violet. Stone wavered, the smell in him, surrounding him, the walls wept blood and the flapping, oh how the flapping never ended, a symphony of sinew and leather.

 _mama mama mama mama don’t wanna die don’t wanna die mama_

His strength fled from laxing muscles, and hands that scratched the earth smoothed. The purple haze darkened, and the disconnect settled surreally, blissfully. Before him, the zombies dropped to their knees. Behind him, the bones fell prostrate. Somewhere, he heard screaming, the calling voices. _Angel!_ they shrieked, and he smiled as the zombies dropped down in agreement.

In the darkness, he understood what the creatures of death wanted him to know.

When he woke, his bed was warm, the coverings soft. Walls of white were familiar and flaking, the curtains gauzy in a natural breeze. His hair lay in dampened strands against cool pillows, and he smelled of shampoo and fever, sweat and perfumes.

 _Home._ And a pause, before he kicked off the blankets. _No._

Words drifted from the kitchen, shaking whispers that called like sirens of warning. A protest. A shattered glass. A broken cry. Dark eyes peered around the corner, watching Mother, watching Father.

And it was only a child that could harbor sweet confusion. Mother was crying. Why? It was a happy time! They had showed him! They had—

“It _is_ my fault!” her words hissed, jagged and pleading, needing to be blamed. “If I had been watching him--”

Father interrupted, precise, clipped. “He still would’ve fallen in.”

“But he wouldn’t—The poison and the fever wouldn’t have—wouldn’t have--”

The boy pushed out from his place; they didn’t understand that they didn’t need to fight! It was a joyous day! It was—destiny!

Their words stopped, watching him. Afraid. Worried. He smiled with a six-year-old grin, a fever’s glow, small hands that steadied him.

“Mama! Papa!” he cried. “Don’t worry! I know! I'm Azra--”

"Don't say that word!" And Mother paled to the color of parchment drying in the sun. How many times had they gone through this? How many times had he been awake before? It seemed reminiscent, but hazy, like through the eyes of another boy. “Your fever, honey, it’s making you sick. Delusional. You--you know what delusional means, right, Hizr--”

“No!" the child shrieked, the single syllable carrying more weight than all the protests and ignorance before. "I know what I am! Who I am! I know! I know I’m the Angel of Death!”

Father swept him off to bed again as his mother wailed, droning on about brains that break, about cures that never existed. As he was dropped into bed, a large hand cuffed his ear and growled that he needed to stop upsetting his parents, that it was the poison talking, that there was no such thing. Angels. Bah. Stupid boy. Insolent boy.

Grief breaks the strongest of hearts. Six years old and he wasn’t ready to bury his mother, the woman who hung herself from the rafters of her bedroom, nightgown swaying in the same breeze that had moved his curtains. Six years old, and he wasn’t ready to find her with blue lips and bulging, rolled back eyes, with a neck broken and her bare feet dangling inches off the floor.

He sat at her side, caressing her toes, whispering how he would take her home. How it was an angel’s job. How he was sorry, but death did as death must.

Six years old and his father hated him, even as they stood in the rain and shoveled the dirt.

Eighteen never came fast enough, not for the need to move, the quick to act. The world called in the same crooning wail he had heard when the zombies fell, and katars sharpened (How many years had he saved for these? How many zeny did he hoard away for such a cheap and chipped set?), he slid out into the darkness. His father wouldn’t care, would be glad his “mad boy” would be gone. The other children would be pleased that the boy with “problems” had disappeared.

They didn’t understand. That’s all. They didn’t _know_ what he knew.

The tree branches creaked under his feet, and sitting in the leaves, he could see moonlight glow of someone below.

They didn’t have The Mark.

Jumping to another tree, he went on, waiting for the ones with A Sign.


End file.
